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Could I set up my website before renting a server?

I could set up a website using XAMPP and then when I have rented a server all I need to do is move the data over.

This way I wouldn't have to pay before setting the website up, I could just move the data over without even having the server rented out, would that be possible or would I have to rent the server and then code the webpages. You can make a HTML page without having a server and you can use XAMPP for server side languages like PHP but could you do this for your whole website?

You can make a HTML page without having a server and you can use XAMPP for server side languages like PHP but could you do this for your whole website?

It depends what other capabilities you mean when you say "your whole website", and whether those are available to install on your local machine. If you can get and install them locally, then the answer is yes.

But what about the links because if you are including a link in the page to a certain location that is on your local machine, then wouldn't all the links become invalid? For example I am trying to connect one page to the other so I specify a local link on my computer. But when I move it over to the website then wouldn't become invalid as the location would of changed? It would not be local anymore, it would be on the server.

In many cases you will need to make some serious financial investment when starting your own hosting firm. Be very weary of the fact that many of the software on the market are not cheap, and the type of servers most of your clients will be expecting their sites to be hosted on, will not be cheap either.

As long as your links are relative and not absolute they'll work anywhere.

Just to expand on this reply:

If you are writing HTML/CSS then you can make all the links relative and the only likely problem is capitalization of link addresses. This is because, if you are developing locally on a Windows platform, then it ignores capitalization errors. E.g. "path/file.html" is treated the same as "Path/File.HTML" and "PATH/FILE.html" etc... However, if the live server is Unix based, non-matching capitalization of links will fail when you put the pages to live.

If you use a CMS, the above still applies, but you are also dependent on:

a) Being able to download a local copy of the development environment, or some other such arrangement.

In many cases you will need to make some serious financial investment when starting your own hosting firm. Be very weary of the fact that many of the software on the market are not cheap, and the type of servers most of your clients will be expecting their sites to be hosted on, will not be cheap either.